A modern beehive comprises various components which fit together to form the hive. Generally, these components will include:                A Hive Stand. The upper hive components rest on this providing a landing board for the bees and helping to protect the Bottom Board from rot and cold transfer,        A Bottom. Board. This has an entrance for the bees to get into the hive. This can be screened for ventilation and mite control,        A Brood Box. This is the most bottom box of the hive and is where the queen bee lays her eggs,        A Honey Super. These are the uppermost box(s) where honey is stored.        Frames & Foundation. These are wooden or plastic frames with wax or plastic sheets with honeycomb impression where bees build wax honey combs, or pre formed plastic honeycombs.        Outer Cover. This is the outermost housing to provide weather protection for the hive.        Inner Cover. This provides separation from an overly hot or cold Outer Cover and can be used as a shelf for feeding or other purposes.        
The honeycomb is a densely packed matrix of hexagonal cells. Bees use the cells to store food (honey and pollen). When a cell is filled, the bees place a wax cap over the end of the cell. The honeycomb is held in a frame which is usually rectangular. Several frames are placed next to each other in the upper part of the hive (the honey super). It is known to provide a plastic (usually polypropylene—but aluminium has also been used) honeycomb formed with the matrix of hexagonal cells. This relieves the bees of the effort required to build wax cells and gives the bees more time to collect honey. It is known to vary the shape and size of the cells in an artificial honeycomb.
Collection of honey can be very laborious and time consuming. As an example, a common way to collect honey requires the following steps to be carried out: A bee-proof suit needs to be donned; the lid of the hive is opened to expose the honey containing frames. The hive is smoked to calm the bees. A blower is sometimes used to remove bees from the frames. The frames are removed from the hive and transported to a processing center. The cells in the frame need to be uncapped by removing the wax cap. This can be done using an uncapping fork or an uncapping knife. The frames then need to be spun to remove the honey from the cells by centrifugal action. After the honey is removed, the frames are taken back to the hive and replaced (or new frames are inserted). It is estimated that the above time-consuming steps constitute approximately 90% of the beekeepers time required to collect honey from the hive.
Another disadvantage with conventional collecting techniques is the expense required in the provision of a honey shed, an extracting machine, and sometimes an automatic decapping machine.
Another disadvantage is that the hive can be quite damaged during the honey collecting process (also called the robbing process). For instance, bees use 7 kg of honey to make 1 kg of wax.
Another disadvantage is that the existing process greatly disturbs the bees and many bees may die during honey collection. Also, there is always the annoyance (and sometimes potential danger) in bee stings during the robbing process of the hive.
Another disadvantage with the existing process is that the hive can only be robbed at certain times such as daylight, no rain, no high winds, etc and therefore there are often restrictions and limitations on the times when the hive can be opened to collect the honeycombs.
Another disadvantage is that traditional hives leave spaces for pests and diseases.
Honey in the cells is held in place by the wax cover (cap) placed over the cell mouth by bees and also by the viscosity of the honey. Thus even if a way was found to remove the wax cap in a simpler manner, the honey would still not easily drain from the cells. This is why the frames need to be transported to a factory which has a centrifuge to spin the honey out of the cells once the cap has been removed.
It is known to build a hive of special design and to suck honey out of the hive using a suction pump. The mechanism is quite complex as each frame has a dislodgeable plate on which the bees make their wax cells. When the honeycomb is full, the plate is moved to break part of the wax cell wall. However, due to the “sticky” nature of the honey, the honey does not drain from the cells and into a honey trough. Thus a suction pump is required to suck the honey out. The cells of the honeycomb are not artificial and instead are made by the bees. Also the wax is quite fragile and the above method is unlikely to work without breaking the wax combs.
A more recent variation has a honeycomb formed with a backing plate closing off one end of the cells. Bees will fill the cell with honey and close off the other end with wax. The backing plate can be dislodged in the hive and in theory honey should flow from the cells by gravity and into collecting trays and pipes to flow from the hive. In practice, the honey does not readily drain due to the viscosity of the honey in the cell.
It is known to provide heating in an attempt to decrease the viscosity of the honey and therefore to improve the honey flow characteristics. However, these known techniques can also heat the bees in the hive which is undesirable.
It is known to transport beehives from one location to another location. With the general demise of bee numbers in agricultural areas, it is becoming more common for farmers to request beehives to be placed on their farms to improve pollination. A required number of beehives are lifted into a trailer (or similar) and then transported (typically by road transport) to a desired position. The hives are then unloaded from the trailer and placed on the ground (or on a stand) for the desired time which can be several weeks or several months. There would be an advantage if it were possible to provide a less physically demanding and time-consuming method to conduct this.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method to remove honey from a hive which would overcome at least some of the abovementioned disadvantages or provide a useful or commercial choice. A preferred object is to enable honey to be removed from a honeycomb without needing to remove the honeycomb from the hive.
Any references to methods, apparatus or documents of the prior art are not to be taken as constituting any evidence or admission that they formed, or form part of the common general knowledge.